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It is no longer just a promotion...Every sale made on my site that was not referred by an affiliate will be credited to the last affiliate that sent a legitimate visitor. This will be a permanent feature.

Since affiliates have been appreciating the free commission, I feel it is only right awarding affiliates for their work.

Why the patent on this strategy??
My hopes is that it will prevent merchants from abusing this system.....Afterall, you currently have to rely on me to be honest and award every sale to an affiliate....This can be easily mishandled by other merchants....Serious merchants will get permission from me to use this method through licensing or royalties which I hope will maintain the integrity of this program.

Lets not kid ourselves either, I want our program to be very attractive to affiliates. You do well, I do well, we all profit.

New Ladies Bands will up shortly.
I just added swatch bands.
I will update the product database soon.

I used to think it was a good idea. But the patent has turned me off to your entire company. Your reason posted is disingenuous, it is just for the cash, otherwise you would license it royalty free, so why try and dress it up the integrity bs... that is already covered in anyone having a program.

Hello Chet,
Getting quality affiliate traffic is important...If I can provide the best program out there, I will.......

We are all in marketing for money......I wont hide that....It's my idea and I want to be competitve with the greatest merchants......If this gives me an edge, why not....Otherwise I would be just like the rest.

That being said, since it is my idea, why should I give it away? I should make profit from it....

In addition, I do want the program to show genuine integrity....It would be way too easy to BS affiliates, and maybe give them commission on every third sale.......I give commission on every sale. Just ask some of my affiliates who have now had more than 3 free commissions.

I seriously doubt that Richard actually applied for a patent, I think it was more of an indirect bumping of the other thread that he continuously bumped to the top of the SaS forum, more so when Brian answered a few unanswered posts.

Richard, i like your program but enough with the patent stuff. I can't see too many merchants wanting to give commissions to affiliates on traffic they got on their own. You can keep any free commissions from me, you earned it, keep it.

Hey Trust,
It always seems to be the wacky ideas that do well. More people have joined my program...More traffic is coming in, because of the chance at free commission. I think it's a win-win situation for my affiliates and myself...One affiliate has over five free commissions...Most free commissions are going to the people bringing in the most traffic, that's no coincidence, that's just statistics.

Occasionally Free commissions go to someone sending few visitors...but you never know.

So trust, if you send the traffic, I want you to get free commission...

I send converting traffic, so i earn my commissions I agree it's a good way to get affiliates interested in the program and you have a lot of support with it. I guess when you took it the patent route, and keep posting about it, i don't know just kinda lost me. I think you're the only one interested in that.

How do you figure out who sent the last traffic? Recently, we had an affiliate join that drove a large amount of non-coverting traffic. It got weird, before I checked the site again and notice he had tons of pop-ups that goes straight to our affiliate links (I have pop-up stopper, so didn't notice it at first). We do not like nor accept affiliate using automatic pop ups, so I sent him a message while temporarily removing him. Still waiting to hear back from him.

I'm sure you haven't ran into this situation, but how do you reward the people that drives valid traffic instead of bad ones? This one guy sent a couple hundred useless clicks to us within a few hours and drove our EPC down to the ground. Literally when I went to check out the site, I caused like 10~20 more clicks.

quote:Originally posted by Watchmaker:
I never lie....and am always honest and intend to be.

....

Your comment seems to be directed in an unfair way, and with an uninviting tone...Is there a reason for this?

Richard,

Simply put, as both a patent and tm applicant I most certainly know what the real costs are and thought it quite askew for a new merchant to squander monies on patenting (albeit a novel idea) when they could better use such funds to "build the business". I was obviously wrong, and I apologize in assuming.

Hi Haiko,
You are right the costs of a patent are expensive especially with legal fees...That is why I have filed for a provisional patent......which is much less cash at the moment. This protects my idea until I file for the non-provisional patent...The cost is much less with a provisional patent.

Hi Trust,
When I first got into this, and started doing this, I had a lot of affiliates who wrote me and congratulating me on this idea....A patent was never in my mind....Then a number of merchants also said that they wanted to do this as well...
My hopes is to keep this idea original and unique, because if everyone is doing it for free, the novelty will wear off....

AND CHEZ,
Back to the money thing....I've never tried to deceive anyone...Of course I want to do well financially, as do you affiliates....

Chez: I don't see you openly stating where your affiliate sites are. The reason is clear; you are in competition with other affiliates in a sense...You don't want them copying your sites do you? No different than me wanting to keep my own ideas.

My job is to make sure our affiliate program is unique and has a lot to offer....

That being said, There are amazing merchants all over Share-A-Sale, and I wish all other merchants success because they have their own unique promotions going on. I continue to make friends with merchants and affiliates here on ABW...and if you've watched me around here in the last three months or so, I do offer assistance to merchants and affiliates when I can.

Forgot to answer Eink4u.com:
It's easy to track the entry of affiliates on my site just through server logs...The SSAID remains in the landing page and is recorded...As far as bogus hits like from pop-ups, the duration of visitors are also recorded... I also must have some pop-ups because some visitors are recorded as having a zero duration on my site...Those referrals would not be credited...10 seconds is what I go by.

"Then a number of merchants also said that they wanted to do this as well..."

Then let them. If fact they can, they don't need your permission, i guess for now. You say you're all about affiliates, good cheer and all that stuff but if a merchant has to pay you first, they're less likely to do it. Good idea to start a program off, but taken too far IMO when you started bringing in all this patent nonsense.

Trust...It has gone quite far...Just want to keep this idea mine for now along with something unique that I only offer.

I am not too interested in giving my marketing ideas away....The provisional patent is a claim to this methodology.

But you are right....and so is Haiko....The free commission program is now running and set in it's place...so for now, let's put away this patent nonsense and focus our energies on our affiliate program....

I am adding a number of ladies bands on the site tonight.......Very time consuming, but it needs to be done.....

I think some of you need to give Richard a break. He is new to affiliate marketing, came up with a great marketing idea that generated (I am guessing here) a fair amount of traffic quickly and he doesn't want every other affiliate program under the sun to use his idea. I think more of us should be like Richard and think a bit more outside the box.

Haiko, I remember the thread that got closed by Brian having a lot of other merchants posting to it to congratulate him on his pioneering spirit. Shame on you for saying he bumped his thread to the top of the forum. It was the excitement by both his affiliates and his fellow merchants that kept that thread alive. All he did was reply to the posts of others.

I say Richard.
Keep up the inventive thinking. After all, that IS what affiliate marketing is all about.
Scott

Just to clarify: I have had increased interest in my affiliate program with this strategy, resulting in more affiliate sign-ups and increased traffic......We are growing modestly, but I can't say I am breaking the bank yet. I believe this strategy will continue to help my company grow.....Especially when more people hear about it. At the moment I think only ABW affiliates in this forum are aware of it.

Richard, at first I thought you was joking about the (Provisional Pantent on the Free Commission Strategy) but, now that I see that you are serious about that issue, I want to ask you a question that I posted here before but, after three days with out a reply I delete it.

quote:Originally posted by Watchmaker:
Forgot to answer Eink4u.com:
It's easy to track the entry of affiliates on my site just through server logs...The SSAID remains in the landing page and is recorded...As far as bogus hits like from pop-ups, the duration of visitors are also recorded... I also must have some pop-ups because some visitors are recorded as having a zero duration on my site...Those referrals would not be credited...10 seconds is what I go by.

Cheers

Seems to work right. I just think a little differently perhaps because of the different market we are in. Our company is in a high demand / highly competitive market. We get a lot of visitors and have to deal with fradulent activites daily. There are some really smart people out there but is low on morals.

Unfortunately, since we get too much non-affiliate traffic this promotional idea is out of the question for us.

I do have a question for everyone. This is in any sense a promotional strategy. You are giving the promise of a free "gift" to entice people. Is it common for people to patent promotions, and do people think it's wise? There are a lot of ways of giving out freebies.